SAP At A Cultural Tipping Point?

I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about the use of Social Media at and by SAP.  And although this is a post on my personal blog, consider it a motivational speech to my SAP colleagues. This was motivated by a brief conversation on Twitter with Dennis Howlett, a person I respect and consider a friend.

This weekend, Dennis tweeted myself and Chris Horak. Den had an extensive conversation with Chris about SAP's presence on Twitter. (Here's the feed of that conversation) but what Dennis had said to both of us:

Wow. I was surprised.  Blatant pimp crap?  I thought we were pretty good at having conversations.  As you'll see from the feed, I was brought into this conversation at the tail end, the majority of it was between Dennis and Chris.  But I appreciate Den including me and it in fact spurred this post.

I can imagine that many of you are wondering to yourself?  Am I pimping crap?  I don't think so. And  I haven't yet spoken to Dennis directly to get his thoughts. But I think its fantastic seeing so many new SAP initiatives which include a Social Media component.  I'm so pleased to see it and be a part of helping to create these strategies.  But remember, our capabilities as marketers must evolve so that we become  Conversationalists and Storytellers.
 

So back to Dennis' reaction.  My guess? (and it is a guess)  Dennis is reacting to the fact that there has been a tremendous influx of SAPers into Social Media channels.  This is all goodness.  And we're kinda swarming about trying new things, some of it more uni-directional than true conversation and some of it which may or may not belong in these channels. Also some of us have not yet used Social Media in support of a business brand before.  That's why we've been doing the training and immersion that many of you have attended. And some may be using it in more traditional ways, more as a one-way communication channel, rather than using it as an opportunity to have value-based conversations.  If you're not saying something of interest -- how do you know its interesting?  Someone is talking back or at least listening... if you're not doing that then stop.   Re-think why you are here and if you have questions... go to the experts on SCN or come talk to me or Mike Prosceno or many other folks designated as responsible for Social Media and ask their advice.   

You can't really serve offers thru these channels unless a channel has been designated as such (a la @delloutlet ) or you have the permission of those you are conversing with to do so.  That's why we are so keen to understand who is following us on these social channels and what type of information they are interested in seeing.   We did this on Facebook and here's a link to the Survey Data we collected.  We now know what's an acceptable framework for conversation on Facebook...

• Customers want to be able to research solutions
• They want to connect with other customers
• They want to understand what their peers in their industry are doing to weather the economic crisis.

You need to do the same -- you need to understand what the folks who are following you on Twitter or who are Fans on Facebook want to talk about.  You do this in the same way you have a real time face to face conversation... you ask..."So what do you do?  What's happening these days?  What's new?"

Look, I told Dennis I think we're witnessing a shift in SAP's corporate culture. And I think we're approaching a Tipping Point. We're getting out onto Social channels, en masse and we're beginning to integrate those channels into our overall development, services and go-to-market strategies.  But, some of us have evolved into the conversationalists, and some of us are still on the journey.  I think we're moving in the right direction and I encourage you to keep evolving. And if you want our assistance.  Please ask!

Comments

[karen snyder]

1.

Steve, congrats on making progress with social media at SAP. Sounds like the employees are starting to embrace it, and they'll get the hang of it.

[Steve]

2.

@karen thanx, yes, we're making progress. recognition of the need is the biggest hurdle, then comes learning how to have a conversation.

[Jen Evans]

3.

The biggest hurdle can be adoption: getting people within the org who aren't naturally inclined to experiment to try it out. Congratulations on successful efforts to achieve just that!

[Steve]

4.

@jen thanx Jen. yes, biggest hurdle is adoption. I don't care of they're doing it wrong... at first, but I want SAP teams to rapidly evolve. They must or they will have to endure the very correct criticisms of those of Dennis Howlett

[Anne Kathrine Petteroe]

5.

Too bad I join this conversation so late.
I have to agree with Dennis on this one - we were spammed to death last weekend, to the point where I wanted to unfollow some SAP/SAP-related accounts.
And my pain threshold is a lot higher with these accounts than with "normal" users or other companies...

In my opinion it is important to tell new users that twitter is about *listening* + conversation and about broadcasting.

There is also a difference between personal (as in individual) and corporate broadcasting accounts. When I follow a person I expect conversations and not only a link feeding machine. When I follow an account like for instance "sapnews" I don't expect anything but links to press releases. It should be made clear from the bio what content I can expect if I follow a certain user.

But of course happy to see SAP adopt social media..you are definitely moving in the right direction!

[Steve]

6.

@Anne... thank you for your comments.. Great Feedback! I've passed them on directly to those newly on Twitter and involved in some of these accounts.

[Anne Kathrine Petteroe]

7.

Just noticed a typo.
What I wanted to say was:
"In my opinion it is important to tell new users that twitter is about *listening* + conversation and not only about broadcasting."
- the "not only" part was missing..

And as I just said on twitter, it is a learning process..

[R Wang]

8.

Steve,

quick comment. if sap's purpose is to try to control the information in social media, you'll fail. people are tired of corporate yahoo's trying to stay on message. if you are trying to engage in dialouge, you'll succeed. people want honest frank conversation. If everyone is drinking the kool aid and trying to engage a customer or influencer, then you'll just lose credibility. you get the point so good luck and keep innovating!

Warmest regards,

R "Ray" Wang
Vice President
Forrester Research, Inc.
http://blog.softwareinsider.org